Every morning when I finally drag my ass out of bed, I take out The Tofunator. Whilst I wait for her to complete her morning micturition (I just found that on Thesaurus.com - I so love vocabulary and the internet), I generally try to wake myself up or fall asleep standing up, whichever works best.

The other morning was a "trying to struggle out of a coma" morning and while walking around in a circle and slapping myself upside the head, I observed some writing in chalk on the concrete pad in the backyard. This in itself is not a strange occurrence as living with a 3-year old lends itself to chalk drawings and such on every conceivable outside writing surface in the vicinity of the house. However, on this particular occasion it appeared that her 14-year old brother had been engaged in the aforementioned chalk writing activity with her. I didn't get a picture (I don't own a camera and my cell phone is all but dead) but here is what I saw:

The Nephew's Name
The Niece's Name
{squiggly drawing}
antidisestablishmentarianism

As I had not yet quite managed to fully regain consciousness (I am so not a morning person), I had to blink a few times, look away and then look back to fully absorb that my nephew had chosen to write the longest word in the English language while playing outside with his sister. Not something you see every day.

Over the weekend, The Nephew, The Niece and I took our two dogs for a walk. The dogs' names are Tofu and Betsey. The Nephew pushed The Niece in her stroller and I walked the two dogs.

Tofu is an older, more mature (at least when not in the presence of food or when you haven't been out of her sight for more than two nanoseconds) dog. Betsey is still in puppyhood, being only about two years old. Betsey kept trying to run around The 'Fu and would get their leashes entwined.

While separating their leashes for the trillionth time, I say to The Nephew, "you know that Bob Dylan song, 'Tangled Up in Blue'?"

He cautiously replies, "Yeah".

I then say (you can hear it already, can't you?), "Well, Betsey's song would be 'Tangled Up with 'Fu'".

Oddly enough, The Nephew didn't laugh but chose to look at me like I was mentally deranged. I mean really, that was pretty darned funny.

Okay, so at least I crack myself up, right? I've gotta make someone laugh.

Over the past few weeks, the moon has not been visible in our part of the world (lovely OC, CA). This has bothered my 2 1/2 year old niece, The Niece, greatly. She is very attuned to "my moon" and is deeply troubled when she can't see it. When she first noticed it wasn't in sight, she asked me where it was. Figuring we were in a new moon, I told her it was sleeping. She's 2 1/2, ok? While she's exceptionally intelligent (not biased AT ALL), I don't particularly think she'll fully understand that the earth is blocking the light from the sun and so we can't see the moon, blah, blah, blah. Sleeping is a much more toddler friendly explanation.

Well the weeks have gone by and still no moon. I've even considered Googling "Why can't I see the moon" but then realized I'd get search results along the lines of "it's on the other side of the world, dumbass", which would cause irreperable damage to my already fragile psyche. Can't have that. So last night, when the inevitable questions arose about the absence of the moon, thank goodness it was cloudy so I could say the moon was hiding because for the moon to be sleeping this long would indicate death in all likelihood, which would not be a good thing. Nope, not at all.

Anyway, my point is that given The Niece is so freaking obsessed with the moon, I'm figuring she must be a werewolf. Yep, she's contracted lycanthropy. It must have been that little girl in The Niece's pre-school class who's bitten The Niece at least twice in the past. It's the only time I can remember where The Niece has been bitten by something other than an insect. I mean, I've never heard of a lycanthropic mosquito, have you?

Now there's an idea....mosquitoes turning into werewolves. Hmmm....

But I digress. I am convinced this must be the answer. I am also in no way influenced by the fact that the new Underworld: Rise of the Lycans movie came out today and that I really want to see it so I have werewolves on the brain.

There is also the possibility that I'm a looney.

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LUNAR UPDATE: Last night the moon made a reappearance just above the urban horizon (aka right above all the houses) and The Niece was, well, over the moon about it. She howled in glee and was appropriately thrilled as to the moon's presence, as all who share her condition (please see the aforementioned lycanthropy) do. Well, she may not have howled so much as giggled and said "my moon back" repeatedly. Either way, it was pretty damn cute.